Join us on campus

Student-mentors-in-residence, Laurence, Grant and Ian Tarr will take you through each stage of writing your business plan.

Every startup needs a solid business plan and if you are looking to enter Round 2 of our Dragons’ Den pitching competition (£5k up for grabs for your business!) or the Alumni Innovation Award then you will need one to enter.

You will also need to submit your business plan if you wish to be eligible for the SETsquared Entrepreneurship Programme certificate which will be awarded during a drinks reception at Enterprise Day on Wednesday 29th March 2022.

Therefore, we have put together a series of three workshops to take you through each stage, ensuring you complete Semester 2 with a clearly written business plan.

We recommend taking part in all three workshops and also completing the self-led research using the resources provided below to assist you with your Competitor Analysis section.

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12/01/23 - Workshop A: The Customer Analysis (5:00pm to 6:30pm)

I have a great idea but will it work?

Knowing who you customers will be, what they want, how you are going to reach them and keep them engaged is one of the first things you should know before you embark upon a new business venture. Sounds easy but the biggest cause of failure for new businesses is no market need. In fact, the business world is also littered with long established companies that failed because they didn’t take their customers and market trends into account. Save yourself a great deal of grief and avoid this bear trap!

EB 3.1 (E-Lab)

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17/01/23 - Workshop B: The Sales & Marketing Plan (5:00pm to 6:30pm)

• What is a Sales Plan?

• What's a Marketing Plan?

• What information should you be including in this section of your business plan?

Our two student enterprise Mentors-in-Residence, Grant Calvin and Laurence James, will be running a joint session to help you through what you need to consider for your business plan and how to present the information. There will be a Q&A session at the end and questions are welcome throughout the presentation. Register for the series below and we will see you there :)

EB 3.1 (E-Lab)

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08/02/23 - Workshop C: The Competitor Analysis (5:00pm to 6:30pm)

This session is a bit different - we have a selection of online resources for you to check out - and don't forget that those of you who have signed up to the NatWest programme (hopefully all of you) have a Competitor Analysis module within Business Builder, which will outline the importance- of, how to and the notion that competitor analysis is a cyclical function, not only when designing or updating a product or service.

Have a look at this -

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/search-marketing/competitor-analysis-tools-for-marketers-2020/

NatWest also recommend https://www.crayon.co/ who are pretty fantastic in terms of what they make available for free around Competitor Analysis. Definitely worth checking out!

EB 3.1 (E-Lab)

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10/02/23 - Workshop D: The Financial Plan (5:00pm to 6:30pm)

What is a financial plan? Where does it fit into the business plan? Why is it important and why do you need one? This is a practical session where Grant will work through a financial plan with one of you and give everyone the opportunity to develop this section of their business plan during the session. There will be a Q&A session at the end and questions will be welcome throughout.

EB 3.1 (E-Lab)

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